


It's Time to Turn it Up

by GotMyInkPen



Series: Sole Heir [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: And Succeeding, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Irondad, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Heir, Peter Parker is Trying His Best, Peter Parker is a Good Bro, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, i guess, self doubt, that still isn't a proper tag it but it will be one day, who knows really - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 06:26:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17893217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GotMyInkPen/pseuds/GotMyInkPen
Summary: “Have you guys ever seen ‘When Harry met Sally’?”Tony shoves his head in his hands and mumbles “Oh God” just as Mrs Rodriguez turns to face Peter and gives him a rather tight lipped, “Excuse me?”Well, there’s no backing out now.“Um. Y-you know, ‘When Harry met Sally’? My Aunt made me watch it. It’s pretty old, like made in 1989 old. I think.”“Oh my God,” comes Tony’s muffled despair through his hands.“Anyway,” Peter says(OR, After discovering he's the heir to Stark Industries, Peter tries to be more professional when attending a board meeting and both succeeds and fails at the same time. Awkward Peter Parker™ strikes again.)~This fic is a part of a series but you 100% don't have to read the previous fic to enjoy this one, although you might like to~





	It's Time to Turn it Up

Ever since Stark told him that he’s the heir – _sole heir_ – to Stark Industries, Peter’s decided to take his business-y duties more seriously.

Well, okay. He doesn’t really have any duties and there isn’t much business-y stuff he’s involved in (yet) but it’s the thought that counts. At least, Peter thinks so.

Which is why he’s only a little bit late to the first board meeting of the year.

“Don’t worry!” Peter whisper shouts through laboured breaths as he skids to a halt in front of Tony, “I-I’m here. I made it. We’re cool.” 

Tony leans against a wall of the hallway, conveniently shielding Peter from the glass door that leads into the conference room. His arms are crossed. Peter doesn’t need to be a genius to know that Mister Stark plus arms crossed equals mad. Or at least, a bit ticked off.

“O-or…” Peter says tentatively as he stares at his mentor’s stoic face, “We’re not cool? Because if we’re not cool Mister Stark then I totally know why we’re not cool but I think you should tell me why anyway just to make sure we’re on the same pag— ” 

“Why are you late?”

There’s nothing in Tony’s voice that suggests Peter’s in trouble but he still finds his mouth snapping shut and his fingers fiddling with a strap of his backpack. Man, his backpack is getting old. It’s all frayed around the edges and one of the zips doesn’t zip anymore. Maybe he could ask May for another after her next pay cheque comes i— 

Fingers magically appear in front of his face and snap. Peter leans back slightly on instinct and blinks as he’s brought back to reality with a mumbled “Oh, woah” escaping him. 

“Kid,” Tony says, snapping a few more times just to be safe, “Focus up. Why are you late? That’s the question. You answer. Go.” 

Oh. Right.

Peter looks around the clearly empty hallway just to make sure it is actually empty then turns back to Tony and mouths _‘Spider-Man’_.

“What?”

Peter sighs in frustration. Clearly, Tony’s lip-reading skills aren’t as good as Peter thought. 

“You know,” he insists, miming shooting webs at Stark and whispering, “ _Thwip.”_

Tony does not bother to whisper, “Did you just seriously say _‘thwip’_ while doing your weird webbing motions?” 

“I uh,” Peter clears his throat of nothing but embarrassment, “I was trying to be discreet.”

Tony stares at him for a few more seconds and Peter freezes, waiting for his reaction. Eventually, his mentor just rolls his eyes and spins on his heel, a hand gesturing Peter to follow.

“Come on, we’ve got a meeting to get to.”

“Wait!”

Slowly, _concerningly_ slowly, Tony turns back around. He watches as Peter drops his backpack to the floor and pulls out a dark green sweater that’s three sizes too big, ditching his old winter coat and hoodie in favour of shoving it on. Peter also grabs a notebook and pen before kicking his backpack behind a large potted plant.

“Okay,” he says, steeling his face and nodding at Tony, “I’m ready.” 

Tony sighs a few times and takes off his sunglasses as if to ensure that yes, this is his reality and not some hopelessly tragic comedy film. He rubs his temples and goes so far as to wave a hand at Peter as a whole. 

“W-what’s…” Tony struggles to formulate a sentence. Peter rocks on the balls of his feet nervously and fiddles with the edge of his sleeves that end just before his nails.

“What’s all… _this_ ,” Tony says finally with a bit too much emphasis on the word ‘ _this_ ’ for Peter’s liking. 

Peter looks down at his sweater, then back up at Stark. Then down at his sweater, then back up at Stark.

“W-well you see,” Peter begins to explain, knowing there’s nothing that can save him from the colour growing on his cheeks, “Now that I know I’m gonna be like the owner or CEO or whatever eventually, I think I should be taking this Stark Industries stuff more seriously, and I thought the sweater made me look more… professional?”

The end of his statement wasn’t meant to come out as a question but unfairly, Peter’s insecurity made it so.

“Okay, so I’m assuming that that’s what the notepad and pen’s for too?” 

“Yes.” 

“And you are fully aware that due to it being January, and despite the heating being cranked up to full blast in this building, you’ll still get cold because you don’t thermoregulate and you’ll most likely end up freezing your whole torso off by only wearing that one sweater and a t-shirt.”

Peter considers this for all of two seconds.

“Does it make me look more professional?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say professional. More like instead of a nerdy teenager coming back from school in Winter you look like a nerdy teenager coming back from church… in Spring.”

He shrugs, “I’ll take it.” 

Tony looks Peter over one last time, “Is there any way I can convince you to put your hoodie back on for the sake of health, even if it jeopardises your professional-church-goer look?”

Peter chews the inside of his lip. Any other time, he would’ve given in to Stark by now and put on the hoodie, but he’s trying to be more mature now. He figures that part of growing up is making his own decisions. Stupid decisions, sure, but his none the less. 

“No?”

Stark looks like he wants to try again, but a shout for them to hurry up causes him to let Peter off of the hook Peter wasn’t even sure he wanted to let go of in the first place.

Tony sighs and claps Peter’s shoulder once with a firm squeeze then turns and makes his way into the conference room. Peter doesn’t hesitate and follows close behind, taking deep breaths in order to psych himself up for mature talk time. 

Wait. Peter pauses and makes a quick memo on his notepad.

_Note to self: Don’t call meetings ‘mature talk time’. Does not sound as mature as originally thought._

Alright. _Now_ he’s ready.

Despite Peter’s best effort to appear more serious, the meeting goes about the same as all the others he’s been to. Basically, all the important board members run through the agenda and then babble about old news and issues they’ve been dealing with within the company for a while. 

There’s an order to all this jargon-filled rambling, Peter can tell. Nobody ever talks over one another and with Pepper being the CEO, she quickly moves things along when she can tell people – okay, just Tony – are getting a little too heated. Like a particular argument with the Financial Director about recent large expenses made that caused a tiny decrease in the company’s past quarterly profit. 

“It’s only a few million,” Tony says with a wave of a hand, “I could make up the loss with my own money if you let me.”

“That’s not the point,” the Financial Director says, “Shareholders are worried that— ”

“The Shareholders worry too much. Why don’t we just send them a chicken or eggs or some shit? They could need some more Vitamin B in their life to lower stress levels. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, maybe you have Vitamin B deficiency too, Bennett. When was the last time you had some milk?”

Bennett the Financial Director splutters, “I-I’m lactose intolerant.”

Tony strokes his chin and nods, “I see.” 

“Moving on!” Pepper cuts in with a strained smile and dagger-eyes boring into Tony. At the same time, Tony conveniently looks over at Peter who he is seated directly opposite of. 

He rolls his eyes and Peter smiles back at him in some vague way. Even with his scribbled, bullet-pointed notes, he has almost no clue what’s going on.

Peter’s just happy to be in the room, honestly. 

He never says anything in these meetings. Nobody expects him to. They all just smile at him when his chair squeaks or the tapping of his fingers becomes a little too obvious during a lull in a conversation. Peter supposes they just think he’s like an audience member of a fancy Broadway musical who’s there to observe and appreciate them but not get involved.

And he’s cool with that. Well, he _was_ cool with that. Now, Peter feels he should be taking a more active role, speaking out during the conversations and throwing in his own two-cents.

If he can ever work up the courage to speak, that is.

At some point though, the representative of the Personnel Committee – Mrs Rodriguez – starts to talk about interns and that, Peter thinks, is something he might be able to actually engage in. 

“The number of Interns applying from the top academic high schools in larger States outside of New York such as Texas and California are dropping,” Mrs Rodriguez says, reading off her own personally lamented notes, “They seem to believe there’s no point in applying to S.I. when there are other technology companies primarily based in their States that are easier to get into.”

“But we’re Stark Industries,” Tony says with mild exasperation and sounding slightly offended, in Peter’s humble opinion, “We’re the top of the top. Don’t they know how great an Internship at our company would look on College applications?”

Mrs Rodriguez shrugs, “Any large technology company would. They seem to be going for experience over business reputation.” 

“Bullshit. What about kids with big dreams from shitty schools? Are they giving us a shot?”

“Tony,” Pepper admonishes.

He holds up his hands in surrender, “My bad. I’ll retreat from this conversation. You take the lead.” 

Pepper’s glare turns into an encouraging nod as she motions for Mrs Rodriguez to continue.

“Teenager’s from less acclaimed schools don’t even bother with large companies like ours,” Rodriguez says, shifting slightly in her seat, “The consensus is there is a prejudice and they’ll never get in.”

“How do you suggest we up the number of Interns applying then?” Pepper asks.

Mrs Rodriguez hesitates before stuttering, “W-well I’m not sure. We’ve tried advertising at different schools but then students from other schools think we’re playing favourites an— ”

“Have you guys ever seen _‘When Harry met Sally’_?”

Tony shoves his head in his hands and mumbles “Oh God” just as Mrs Rodriguez turns to face Peter and gives him a rather tight lipped, “Excuse me?”

Well, there’s no backing out now. 

“Um. Y-you know, _‘When Harry met Sally’_? My Aunt made me watch it _._ It’s pretty old, like made in 1989 old. I think.”

“Oh my God,” comes Tony’s muffled despair through his hands.

“Anyway,” Peter says, purposely ignoring Tony, “There’s this scene that could kinda apply to this situation where— ”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs Rodriguez interrupts, teetering on the verge on hysterics, “Is he being serious?” She looks between all the board members who are equally as confused, “Is he _actually_ being serious?”

Tony sighs and lifts his head out of his hands, scrubbing his fingers through is hair and closing his eyes to escape from the madness unfolding before him. 

“Yeah. He’s serious. This is how the kid’s brain works when it comes to big ideas. He speaks through films.”

Mrs Rodriguez scoffs, “Well I can’t see how affective that could be when he’s dealing with serious issues like this.”

 _Oh no_ , Peter thinks. _Oh no._

Has he messed up? Was what he just said wildly inappropriate? Panic makes his heart pound and he can feel the school cafeteria mac and cheese stirring in his stomach. 

“I-I’m sorry,” he stammers in panic, unsure who he should be apologising to specifically – everyone, probably, “I-I didn’t mean to be— ”

“No, no,” Stark says, waving a hand, “You’re fine. Let’s hear it kid. Don’t be shy.” 

Peter open and closes his mouth a couple times like a helpless goldfish and looks on with horror as every adult in the room turns to face him expectantly.

Bad idea. Bad, bad, _bad_ idea. 

“It’s okay Peter,” Miss Potts says quietly from the head of the table with a kind smile, “Go ahead.”

“W-well,” he starts, licking his drying lips, “There’s that scene in the film where Harry and Sally are having lunch in this restaurant-diner thing and Harry says that he’s good at… you know… _doing it_ — ” 

“Oh my god.”

“—and he knows he is because every time the girl always… you know…”

Tony leans over to Pepper and whispers, “If he says finishes I swear I’m gonna— ” 

“ _...finishes._ And— ”

“God damn it.” 

“—Sally gets mad and says that girls can fake it sometimes and Harry says he doesn’t believe her so she starts pretending to… you know… and she makes it really convincing and everyone in diner kinda looks at her like she’s crazy but at the very end this old lady says, ‘I’ll have what she’s having’.”

Peter looks around the room and sees only a few forced smiles cast his way. 

He swallows and taps his fingers along the table faster.

“It’s. Um. It’s funnier in the movie.”

“Kid,” Tony prompts, clearly trying to hold back a sigh, “Point?” 

“Oh. Right. Anyway, the point is Harry realised Sally was right and that her example was really um, _impressive_ and so does the rest of the restaurant. So if you imagine that Sally is Stark Industries and Harry are the fancy schools and the old lady are the other schools— ”

“Hang on,” Tony says, perking up with interest, “I think I get where you’re going with this kid.”

Peter blinks.

“Really?”

“Yeah, yeah. What you’re saying is that Stark Industries should show these students how good being an intern can be. Give them a spectacle. Hold an event or something that proves to the snobby kids our branches in their State are worth it as well as encourage the other kids to give it a go.” 

“Yes,” Peter confirms with a frantic and relieved nod, “That’s exactly what I’m saying.” 

“Well,” the Marketing Director chimes in, “If they agree, we could choose the top Stark Interns in different States to almost be spokespeople. Get them to do a few commercials and press conferences and attend school career fairs. It would also give the company a more family-friendly image.”

“I suppose that would be a good way to encourage students,” Mrs Rodriguez concedes, “but do we have enough in the budget to create a whole new publicity campaign in multiple States?” 

Tony scoffs, “Uh, hello. Billionaire here? I’m sure there’s more than enough cash to spill." 

Pepper sighs, “Tony, you know that’s not how…”

And just like that, they’re off again. Peter watches with relief as the conversation is pulled away from him and back to the adults.

The tapping of his fingers becomes a slightly more succinct rhythm and he leans back in his not-too-squeaky wheelie chair as he mulls over what just happened.

Peter had contributed. 

By talking about a movie scene.

About orgasms. 

_Yikes._

Half of Peter wants to give himself a pat on the back while the other half wants to pick up his notepad and slam it against his forehead while repeatedly screaming _“stupid stupid stupid.”_

Is Mister Stark pissed? He’s probably pissed. 

Peter looks over to his mentor who is quite clearly paying Peter a whopping zero percent of his attention. 

Yeah, he’s totally pissed.

Or is he?

For the rest of the meeting, Peter suffers through the emotional turmoil silently, wondering if he should ask to be transferred from _‘Heir of Stark Industries’_ to ‘ _The Department of Idiots’._

As soon as the meeting is adjourned, Peter stands and makes a speedy attempt to escape.

“Hey kid, can you hang back a sec?”

Nevermind. Speedy escape failed.

Peter turns and slowly shuffles his way over to Tony who is watching him with folded arms.

“Wh-what’s up?” Peter squeaks.

Tony raises his eyebrow and sighs, “Kid— ”

“Are you firing me?!” Peter blurts out, “Because if you are, I’m really sorry sir. I just wasn’t thinking and the words kept coming out of my mouth and I didn’t think the metaphor was inappropriate until I said it. Also if you fire me, that doesn’t affect Spider-Man right? Because if you take the suit again, I’ll probably just steal it back which really goes against my personal ethics code bu— ”

“Hey, whoa Pete, slow down,” Tony says, hands up as if he’s trying to calm a panicked animal, “You’re going to run of oxygen if you don’t take a breather at this rate."

Peter exhales and stares down at his feet, nervous hands digging themselves into his pockets.

"I'm really sorry, Mister Stark," he mumbles, "I-I just wanted to prove to you that I could handle all of _this._ I didn't mean to be embarrassing."

"Kid..." Tony sighs a rubs a hand over his face before speaking softly, "I'm not firing you kid, that's not how this heir thing works," Peter looks up in some sort of surprise and Tony can't help but feel bad for the kid having such little confidence. They'd have to work on that.

"And also," he tacks on, "I’m not mad.”

Peter blinks.

“Y-you, uh. You’re not?”

“Of course not. Well, maybe the movie choice wasn’t exactly PG13 but you still helped a hell of a lot.” 

Tony places a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder and gives him a small smile filled with pride.

“You did good, kid.”

“Really?” Peter doesn’t even bother to hide hopefulness in his voice.

“Really,” Tony confirms, “You helped solve a problem, and sure it might have not been the most… _conventional_ way but that doesn’t really matter. You’re a smart kid Peter and all those old bags who were giving you a hard time can’t change that.”

Peter’s shoulders finally sag and he smiles wide.

“Thanks, Mister Stark.”

Stark claps him on the shoulder one last time, his smile widening to match, “Don’t sweat it kiddo. Now come on, let’s head down to the labs to do something actually fun.”

Peter chuckles and nods, “Yeah okay and uh, by the way Mister Stark…”

“Yeah?”

“You were totally right. I’m freezing.” 

Tony fights to contain his smirk, “Not a fan of the professional-church-goer look after all?”

Peter shudders involuntarily and grimaces, “Nope.”

“That’s fine kid. We’ll just have to get you some suits sometime.”

“Oh. I think I have some old ones at ho— ”

“Absolutely not. You’re wearing suits from this century. Preferably Tom Ford.”

“Tom For— I can’t afford that!”

“But I can.”

“Mister Stark…” Peter groans as Tony pulls the kid close to his side and leads him out.

“I know, I know. No handouts, but this strictly business. If Stark Industries branding has gotta have flair, so does the future owner, am I right?”

Peter looks up and rolls his eyes, “Of course,” he drones, “You’re always right.”

Tony laughs and ruffles the kid’s hair, “Yep, and don't you forget it.”

Peter smiles.

"Never will."

  

**Author's Note:**

> My boy's doing his best and Tony supports him 100%
> 
> This is now a series because I just have a bunch of ideas regarding Peter being the heir and I want to do them all! That being said, if you have any ideas yourself that you might wanna see in this series leave a comment suggesting and I just might do it!
> 
> This was a lot of fun to write. Sorry to everyone who's waiting for the next chapter of INKIWB, I promise it's coming soon and I haven't abandoned it!!
> 
> (Also, yes this fic's title is from the song "Now or Never" from High School Musical 3. All the fics in this series will be named after HSM lyrics. Get on my level.)
> 
> Thanks a bunch for reading and please leave kudos and comments about what you think! xx


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